love to walk on Saturdays

Christian and Christian working hard at the cafe.
Our time here is almost half up! Auggghhh!
Just keep enjoying those roses!

When Picasso and his wife died the French government took 50 million dollars worth of this art as inheritance taxes... so they filled a museum with it all.
The happy dancing couple.
The crucifixion.
Not quite Rodin or Klimt.. but still - The Kiss... no tongues!

Exploring the adventures of French cuisine for Opa and Kate.
Yes indeed, a French elephant doing his calisthenics.
.. at the Pompidou Centre.
Cool way to market chocolate.. almost a pity to eat it.
More beans, please!
"L'Ecoute" sculpture by Henri de Miller at St. Eustache church/Les Halles garden.. great place for lunch.


Please, take me home.. my legs are aching!

Chris' day off at D'Orsay

This is Jane's favorite musee, and I certainly see why. As we walked around to see the various paintings, it struck me that each of these pictures was a snapshot of the lives of these people, just going about their daily lives. The ordinary events that make up our days (except of course the last picture - it is not often we encounter a crocodile that we need to fight to protect our women and children!). So now as I look around during the day, walking around Paris, sitting and drinking espresso and cafe grand creme at the brasseries, tasting the cheeses to decide which ones to buy, smelling the flowers, feeding the sparrows in the Jardin Luxemburg, waiting for the metro, listening to the musicians on the street, seeing the homeless sleeping on the sidewalk ..... as they say in France, "C'est la vie".

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A week with the Freemans

Yes, we have a lift, the size of a telephone booth. Thank God it goes to the 5th floor!
The usual temptation - choclate eclairs are full of ...chocolate inside..not whipped creame.. Rhonda liked them anyway.
This is the Musee Nissim de Camondo. An aristocratic home of a very wealthy Prussion banker. He it built modeled after the Petit Trianon at Versailles to fill it with his amassed collection of rare 18th C furntiure, sculputres, & paintings. His Sephardic Jewish family ended with the son being killed in an air battle in 1917. His daughter, her husband and grandchildren all ended up in Auswitch. Amazing to be in the home after finishing reading Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, about the life of the French during the German occupation. What happened to France during this past century?

This was a fully working kitchen with a side room for the 18 servants to eat their meals.
Marie Antionette's needlepoint table.
This stairway up is "the snail".
This little steet or "passageway" holds Le Precope restaurant cafe from 1686. Some famous guests including Robspierre and Benjamin Franklin.
The original street was very difficult to walk on.

Elmo says.. this is far.. .. and this is near.

We went to the Musee Marmottan Monet expecting to see Monets and Impressionists.. as well there was a wonderful 13/14thC illuminated manuscript collection. "He also made the stars" (Genesis 1:16) I always wondered how God did that! For him, it was so simple.

Jane took this when the guard was not in the room.
More interesting doorways.

This lady was most pleased to have her photo snapped whilst taking her afternoon cafe.

La Defense and more

In this aerial view of the main axis of the city from the Louvre, La Defence is the white marble cube at the end of the road.
We saw a film about the construction and engineering challenges... Greg would have loved it.

Our street with La Sorbonne.
The lady at the flower market was so mad at me she sprayed me with her hose to get me to go away. If I was staying in Paris I certainly would have bought it!
La Marche des Oiseaux was jammed on Sunday morning.. and I felt sad for the tightly packed birds.